In phonetics, nasawization (or nasawisation) is de production of a sound whiwe de vewum is wowered, so dat some air escapes drough de nose during de production of de sound by de mouf. An archetypaw nasaw sound is [n].

In de Internationaw Phonetic Awphabet, nasawization is indicated by printing a tiwde diacritic U+0303◌̃COMBINING TILDE (HTML &#771;) above de symbow for de sound to be nasawized: [ã] is de nasawized eqwivawent of [a], and [ṽ] is de nasawized eqwivawent of [v]. An owder IPA subscript diacritic [ą], cawwed an ogonek or nosinė, is stiww seen, especiawwy when de vowew bears tone marks dat wouwd interfere wif de superscript tiwde. For exampwe, [ą̄ ą́ ą̀ ą̂ ą̌] are more wegibwe in most fonts dan [ã̄ ã́ ã̀ ã̂ ã̌].

By far de most common nasaw sounds are nasaw consonants such as [m], [n] or [ŋ]. Most nasaw consonants are occuwar, and airfwow drough de mouf is bwocked and redirected drough de nose. Their oraw counterparts are de stops.

Nasawized versions of oder consonant sounds awso exist but are much rarer dan eider nasaw occwusives or nasaw vowews. Some Souf Arabian wanguages use phonemic nasawized fricatives, such as /z̃/, which sounds someding wike a simuwtaneous [n] and [z]. The Chineseconsonant日 ([ȵʑ]) has an odd history; for exampwe, it has evowved into [ʐ] and [ɑɻ] (or [ɻ] and [ɚ] respectivewy, depending on accents) in Standard Chinese; [z]/[ʑ] and [n] in Hokkien; [z]/[ʑ] and [n]/[ɲ] whiwe borrowed into Japan, uh-hah-hah-hah. It seems wikewy dat it was once a nasawized fricative, perhaps a pawataw [ʝ̃].

Sundanese has an awwophonic nasawized gwottaw stop[ʔ̃]; nasawized stops can occur onwy wif pharyngeaw articuwation or wower, or dey wouwd be simpwe nasaws.[3] Nasaw fwaps are common awwophonicawwy. Many West African wanguages have a nasaw fwap [ɾ̃] (or [n̆]) as an awwophone of /ɾ/ before a nasaw vowew; Pashto, however, has a phonemic nasaw retrofwex wateraw fwap.

Oder wanguages, such as de Khoisan wanguages of Khoekhoe and Gǀui, as weww as severaw of de !Kung wanguages, incwude nasaw cwick consonants. Nasawization of de phonemes is denoted wif a superscript ⟨ᵑ⟩ preceding de consonant (for exampwe, ⟨ᵑǂ⟩).[4] Nasawized wateraws such as [w̃] are easy to produce but rare or nonexistent as phonemes; often when [w] is nasawized, it becomes [n].

Besides nasawized oraw fricatives, dere are true nasaw fricatives, previouswy cawwed nareaw fricatives. They are sometimes produced by peopwe wif disordered speech. The turbuwence in de airfwow characteristic of fricatives is produced not in de mouf but in de nasaw cavity. A tiwde and trema diacritic (two dots representing de nostriws) is used for dis in de extensions to de IPA: [n͋] is a voiced awveowar nasaw fricative, wif no airfwow out of de mouf, and [n̥͋] is de voicewess eqwivawent; [v͋] is an oraw fricative wif simuwtaneous nasaw frication, uh-hah-hah-hah. No known wanguage makes use of nasaw fricatives in non-disordered speech.

Nasawization may be wost over time. There are awso denasaw sounds, which sound wike nasaws spoken wif a head cowd. They may be found in non-padowogicaw speech as a wanguage woses nasaw consonants, as in Korean.

Contextuaw nasawization can wead to de addition of nasaw vowew phonemes to a wanguage.[5] That happened in French, most of whose finaw consonants disappeared, but its finaw nasaws made de preceding vowews become nasaw, which introduced a new distinction into de wanguage. An exampwe is vin bwanc[vɛ̃ bwɑ̃] ('white wine'), uwtimatewy from Latinvinum and bwancum.